Race to the MLS Playoffs: Which teams will survive the intense, crowded playoff race?

With five rounds of action remaining, 16 of the league’s 19 teams are still alive for the postseason. The 4 through 8 place teams in each conference are especially tight, with just five points separating them in the East and six in the West.

That’s five clubs competing for the final two berths in each half of the league. So which of those bubble teams have the roughest roads to the playoffs?

With an 0-2-0 record in the CCL, San Jose may not have much to play for there. At five points off the pace in the West with five games to go – all but one of them against contenders – things aren’t too much better on the domestic front.

Schellas Hyndman’s men have six games to make up three points in the West, but they also have difficult road dates ahead at New York and Real Salt Lake, and if they move up, which team would they bounce out of the top 5?

The Timbers will have to be sharp to avoid being the answer to the above question, with Cascadia rivalry games, visits from ascendant Colorado, two-time defending champions LA, and Real Salt Lake, who’ve tied and beaten them this year. They really could have used the two points they dropped against Chivas this week.

Road games against New York and Montreal, where they’ll be eager to avenge a lopsided loss in April and a controversial one in Week 28. But first they’ll need to take care of business at home against lowly D.C. and fellow strivers Houston.

The good news? Games against both conference stragglers, Toronto and D.C. The bad? Two games against last year's top conference finisher SKC, and a visit to Montreal, where the Impact are 9-2-3 and where Philly lost 5-3 in May.

The slumping Dynamo traded Adam Moffat, a stalwart of their past two Eastern Conference championship teams, then edged Philadelphia 1-0 for their first win in six games. Houston are going to need goals to stay in the top 5, though, and those have been hard for them to come by lately. That Oct. 24 CCL fixture will be tricky, too.